


JJ's Tale

by Indigoblau



Series: Fragments of a Caleidoscope [9]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, I'll add more tags later, Isabella and JJ are a pair but it is not the major topic, Self-Doubt, Suicidal Thoughts, a 'lil bit graphic, but only a wee bit, kind-of songfic, that's why I didn't add the relationship-tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-01-01 05:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indigoblau/pseuds/Indigoblau
Summary: I wish I wasn't such a narcissistI wish I didn't really kissThe mirror when I'm on my ownOh god, I'm gonna die aloneAdolescence didn't make senseA little loss of innocenceThe ugliness of being a foolAin't youth meant to be beautiful?Teen Idle - Marina and the Diamonds





	1. The dream

**Author's Note:**

> Ouff, now, finally.  
> This is the very first fanfic I ever wrote and it is already finished, so rest assured, it will not die the pathetic never-finished death all those other innocent lil fanfics died on me.  
> But since I wrote it in my mother tongue, which isn't english, I'll have to translate the chapters, that's why there's still time between updates.
> 
> Yeah.. to all of you who read "Don't forget" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13450350), this is the prequel, kind of.
> 
> Important! This story may contains triggers for persons who struggle with depression, suicidal behavior and/or life in general!  
> Please take care!!
> 
> The lines used are from "Teen Idle" by Marina and the Diamond

_I wanna stay inside all day_  
_I want the world to go away_

JJ stood in front of his mirror, stairing at the image of himself not fitting how he last remembered to look like.  
His hair was dishelved and his undercut had grown way too long to deserve its name, but he just hadn't been able to go get it cut the last few weeks.  
He hadn't been able to to ANYTHING the last few weeks, to be honest.  
The notes for his new short program wer put away in one of the many boxes stacking up in his guest room, put away so he didn't have to constantly see them.  
All the CDs given to him by his parents and fans to help inspire him with music where in cardboard boxes, too, the very same boxes he had brought them in here, all of them still untouched.  
Of course JJ could've found excuses - moving was stressful, deciding which furniture to keep and to move them to a new place in his new flat, arrange phone accessement as well as internet, all those authorities he had to inform about his new adress - and while talking to others, he used exactly these things, but he couldn't lie to himself. Not anymore.  
He had hit rock bottom.

A while, not even six months, ago, he had suddenly realised that his life was as empty as those damn rooms who ever since waited to be filled with furniture, drapery and life.  
Moving had been a big dream of his, or rather of the person he had used to be, the JJ with bright eyes and ambitious plans, ready to leave his parents house and start a life on his own.  
But with weeks passing this dream of his had turned more and more dull and meaningless.  
It didn't really matter if he stared at the wall back at his parents or the ones here, after all.  
In fact, moving had made things even worse. It had never occured to JJ that the only reason he put on a smile and went to training and all of these things had been because of his parents and his two precious siblings whom he didn't want to disappoint.  
Now, in this damn cage of a flat noone dared him to stay in contact with himself and his life.  
Of course his parents, mostly his mother, called him regularly or stopped by just to make sure that her oldest son was well and that his start in a new, independent life was a success.  
But they had made an agreement to pause his skate training for the time being, just until his flat was ready and all arrangements had been made.  
Upon hearing it for the first time, JJ had protested, he couldn't imagine staying away from the ice for more than one day.  
But now, it came in handy.  
A perfect excuse as to why he didn't have to leave his apartement.

_The ugliness of being a fool_  
_ain’t youth meant to be beautiful?_

Silently he tore away his eyes from his face in the mirror, falling onto his tattoo on his right shoulder.  
He lifted his hand and caressed the outlines of the maple leaf with his fingertips, tracing the italic letters right underneath with his eyes.  
Dedication and love to his fatherland, the pride of being able to represent it on big tournaments, being a famous Canadian, that's what had led him to get this piece. And it had been the love for the ice, the figure skating, this fragil, intimate dance in which he presented himself wide open to the judges and the audience - the love that had kept him upright almost his whole life had left him.  
Or did he left it himself?

On the other side, on his left shoulder his eyes got caught by the big, fat initials, JL, HIS initials, and JJ suddenly didn't knew if he'd rather throw up or die of laughter when he thought about how obnoxious, egocentric and flat out disgustingly overconfident those two letters, inked right under his skin to be there forever, were.

_The pretty lies_  
_The ugly truth_

It was true, to the world he was JJ the Great, JJ the King, JJ the Undefeatable.  
And there really had been days - years - where he'd believe this himself. Believed that noone could beat him and that he'll reach everything he ever wanted if he just worked hard enough.  
Not only his figure skating career was at its peak, he too had a fantastic and solid fanbase, loving and caring parents as well as a incredibly wonderful girlfriend.  
He truly had been on top of the world.  
Had been.

_I wish I wasn't such a narcissist_  
_I wish I didn't really kiss_  
_The mirror when I'm on my own_

It was a joke.  
A bitter, laughable, devastating joke.  
Who the fuck had he tried to fool?  
Standing here in front of this mirror like the idiot he was, fingernails digging deep into inked skin, wishing to erase its letters along with his own existence, getting rid of his body and continue his life as the hollow, sad joke he had become. Wishing to never have to go out again.

JJs vision wandered back to the eyes of his reflection, eyes of a stranger, dull and tired. The lively, sparkly blue of cornflowers superseded by a dark shadowy slate-color.  
A sob emerged from his chest and slowly he slumped to the floor, surrounded by the walls painted in soft green, clothed with nothing but one of his red sweatpants from his "JJ-Style" line.  
But he couldn't see either of them. All he saw was a blurry world consumed by the gray truth he had tried to ignore for way too long.  
JJ still clearly remembered the day he had finally been able to release his clothing line. Of course, it was a very small und unknown brand and up to 90% of the customers where fans or friends, but he had been so proud nevertheless.

It had always been important to him to give everything his best and to not stop there. To give his best and go beyond the boundaries that everyone told him were the highes he could get. Because he knew that if he only tried hard enough, he would be able to make the impossible happen, too.  
There was no "impossible" in his world, there was no "stop" and sure as hell no "give up" at all.  
He could go further, be faster, better and fly higher. Just like those lines from the song - HIS song - "Theme of King JJ". "Now I can reach the stars."  
It was exactly what he felt while he kept leaving obstacles behind, while he showed the world what he was capable of.

And here he was now, slumped together on this emotionless linoleum floor of his new bathroom, fighting back tears.  
Of course it wasn't like he had never been sad or devastated before; especially if he did bad on the ice and blew a tournament he was frustrated and down for days, until he couldn't stand it any longer and invested this energy released by the defeat into getting better once again.  
He always felt like the bigger and deeper his regret was, the higher it would take him once he stopped moping around and be a sensitive ass over one lousy loss.  
He knew he could believe in his skills and himself, as well as the ability to balance everything within him perfectly.  
Being self confident was his greatest strenght and it had kept him over the surface through many difficult times.  
JJ was a sore loser but because he could count on himself, he always found his way back on track.  
The next time, he always told himself, I'll be the best again.  
Of course he knew how others used to talk about him, how he called him; obnoxious, egocentric. But JJ didn't care. It was okay, he had every right to be confident in himself, after all.  
But one day, JJ couldn't tell when exactly, his self-confidence had began to fullfill another purpose, too. It wasn't just JJ being JJ anymore, he didn't show the world his smiling face and his triumphant fist just to because he truly believed in it, but more because it helped him to shield himself from the cold.  
A place to hide, that he had grown more and more tired of himself.

The more awful he felt, the more obnoxious he acted on the outside, a stage play for everyone to see, only that he was the only one who was aware it was just show.  
A masterpiece to not let anyone know how he slowly fell apart. How his laughter got caught in his throat more often than not, how his smile began to fade away along with the colors of the world.  
After all, he couldn't risk that he, the king on the ice, got recognized as the sorry heap of nothingness that one day suddenly had stared out of his eyes, the sorry heap he could no longer deny he had become.

_I wanna be a real fake_

It was so much easier to let everyone think that his success had gotten to him and had turned him into an odious person rather than explaining this feeling that had made itself a home right where his heart used to be. At night, when he couldn't sleep, in the morning when he took an exhausted shower. At lunch when he sat with his parents at the ice rinks cafe, in the evening when he met his fiance for a drink.  
It was as if the edges of his world slowly got immersed in black fog, a dark hole that started to grow and first consume the sky, the trees in the park, then the hypnoticing sounds of his skates on the ice, the people around him and ultimately even himself.

For a long time JJ sat on the cold floor of the bathroom, his arms wrapped thightly around his chest, dried smeares of blood where he had been clutching his skin to hard.  
It already started to turn dark outside and the chirping of cicadas could be heard from outside the open window in the hallway, as JJ finally moved from his desperate, hollow paralysis. He stood up and disappeared behind his bedroom door, into the darkness of his opressive mind.

This night, JJ cried himself to sleep for the first time since ever.  
He had no idea how long he lied on his bed, curled up like a cat under red sheets, crying tears after tears into the sleeve of his nightshirt.  
Strangely, he didn't even felt particularly sad and the anger and selfhate he had felt before had ebbed down to a dull, hollow sensation.  
Just like his heart, his lungs and his stomach had given way to a bottomless abyss.  
As he finally, after hours, fell into a light sleep, he had a strange dream:

He saw himself standing right at the edge of a hill, looking at the vale underneath.  
It was peacefull, calming. A small creek searched its way through green grass, flanked by trees and bushes, while a small, sandy path followed the bubbling watercourse.  
JJ looked around and found a small trail right beside him, the gras flattened from hundreds of feet which had used this as a decent possibility to reach the valley as well.  
Carefully he began his way down, always looking out for flowers so as to not to flatten them when he reached down on the ground to find trustfull footing again.  
After a short while he finally stood at the foot of the hill and the fields and the gras with its beauty made him smile.  
He walked towards the small path next to the creek and as he felt the warm sand underneath his feet, he realised that he didn't weared any shoes.  
As someone practically living on the ice he hardly ever was barefoot, and he really didn't like the feeling of the whole worlds filth collectet on his sole.  
But now he didn't mind, he kind of enjoyed the soft ground and he crouched down to feel the sand with his hands as well.  
He closed his eyes and a warm, content feeling flowed through him. It was like his soul drank in this calm and warmth of the moment to reflect it inside of him to let him be one with everything for this few seconds.  
After a short while JJ stood up again taking a deep breath with his eyes still closed and upon opening them he began to make his way along the water, a smile still lingering on his face.  
He was so enchanted by the atmosphere of this place that it took him quite a while to realize that things where slowly changing. First it was nothing more than a shy breeze that played with the flowers and the leafs on the trees next to him.  
It felt nice and refreshing. JJ didn't thought much about it, he simply enjoyed the air dancing in his hair and continued to walk towards his unknown destination..  
He followed the sandy path through a lot of curves until the scenery around him slowly began to change more clearly. The sand beneath his feet became barely noticable coarser, the bushes and trees got bigger and more dense.

Suddenly, the sky darkened and as JJ looked around, more changes started to happen.  
The light green grass and the friendly pastel colours of the flowers turned dark and heavy, the calm creek became more massive by the second, his playfull small waves changing into a roaring, swirling force. The light breeze raised for several beauforts and lashed at his face ferociously.  
Heavy clouds appeared, dark and sinister.  
JJ shivered and tried to wrap the light shirts he was wearing closer around his body, but with little to no success.  
The roaring wind came down on his skin like a whip searching ist way throught the openings in his cloths.  
The formerly soft sand had given way to big, sharp gravel that tore his bare feet apart and as he tried to walk on the grassy boards next to the path he realised that the grass had disappeared, too, and there were now thorny thistle herbs.

_I want blood, guts an angel cake,_  
_gonna puke it anyway_

Suddenly, a certainly heavy blast of wind whirled leafes and raindrops sharp as needles in his face, forcing him to lift his arms and expose his bare skin to the merciless weather.  
The trees around him began to bend under the force of the storm, the sky had turned completely black and the previously small creek was now a foaming, raging inferno. JJ tried to make out a house or a hut somewhere, something where he could take shelter. But he couldn't see anything but the thorny hostil fields and the deadly roaring river.  
At a loss what to do, JJ crouched near a strong looking, big tree with broad branches. He curled up on himself, his head between his knees. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the world going down in flames around him.  
And suddenly, slowly but clearly noticeable, something searched its way from the bottom of his heart out into the thunderstorm, leaving his body.  
He jerked his head up, exactly at the right time to withess a.. sphere, seemingly constiting of light and shine exiting his chest and flying into the dark sky.  
As the glowing ball reached the zenith, it instantly bursted into a million small stars, little lights lighting up the black world around him. The strangle little stars whirled through the air, changed places and left small trails of mere illusions of glowing familiarity until they found themselves arranged to a face, a caricatur with hollow cheeks and empty eyes, a crooked nose and a mocking, ugly smile on its lips.  
And then, the qrotesque face began to speak; with a voice that changed from high to deep in mere seconds, breaking in between syllables, being clearly understandable first, just to begin to babble before, once again, be heard loud and clear.

**IF yOU waNt evErYthINg, yOu hAve TO giVe**  
**if YoU hAve EVeRytHiNg, yOu HAve NoThiNg lEfT tO LivE**  
**RoTteN rIgTh To yOuR coRe**  
**You DoN't NeEd yOuR hEaRT anYmORe**

**AsKeD FoR tOo MuCh, plAyED toO HiGh**  
**YouR wiNgS wERe nEveR MeAnT To flY**  
**Id YoU WaNt eVeRytHing, GivE iT yOur ALl**  
**AnD bE prEpArED tO lOsE AnD fAll**

As soon as the giant face had spoken its last word, the star-like lights exploded again, swirled and danced over the dark sky, forming words JJ could not read in time before they disappeared again.  
As it went on, the lights grew remarkably bigger and once again found themselves grouped together, this time forming a spear which began racing towards JJ with horrific speed.  
Desperate, the young man tried to hide behind a nearby tree, but with no success.  
Without a hitch, the glowing spear passed the tree's trunk as if the hard wood didn't even exist, like a hologram in a virtual world.  
The head of the weapon-shaped lights drilled itself through JJs back and came out again at his chest, but now it wasn't glowing anymore but rotten and grey, falling to ashes right at his feet.  
An unbearable pain from where the spear had touched him began spreading through his whole body, burning him from within himself.  
JJ felt his chest and throat go tight, restricting his airways and take away his breath. He choked and heaved, fell onto his knees and began to throw up words and pictures from the depths of his heart.  
Memories from his childhood, his first attempts on the ice, the day his siblings were born, this one birthday party of his best friend in kindergarten, the day he got hist first own skates, his paper in english that he wrote for which he got the best grade in his class, the time his brother and he discovered the little old hut in the forest near their house, his first medal, the first qualification for the Grand-Prix, the day he met Isabella and the day they got together, all of their sweet hours toghether and finally their engagement.  
All those memories and happy moments broke out of him, old, blurry polaroids that floated around him in the air like someone had forgotten to put them away.  
JJ gripped his chest and the torrent of happy memories stopped and gave way to all the dark, hurting moments in reversed order.  
The awful last few weeks, the selfmade cup given to him by a fan he had accidentally broken, the terrible fight with Isabella half a year ago, the two weeks he wasn't allowed to train because of retinal inflamation, the death of their beloved family cat, the skiing accident of his sister, the fight with a friend he never made up with, the first time he injured himself on the ice, the first time coming in last on a tournament, the day he stole some money from his dad and got found out, his broken arm as a two-years old.

Those new, awful memories sticked themselves over all the happy ones and formed a circle, getting smaller and smaller. JJ still kneeled on the cold, hard ground, choking on bitter words he had said, on sad things he had experiencend, vomiting a never ending stream of dark, unhappy things. Suddenly, without a warning, it endend and left the young skater gasping and panting, pleding for release.  
And as he tried to get his breathing under control, the scenery around him chanced once again.  
Exhausted beyond everything he looked up to the sky and realised that this thick black fog that was so painfully familiar seemed to ooze out of every corner of this strange dream world, filling up his vision and his heart until nothing was left, nothing but deep dark despair.  
Now, trapped here in the darkness of his caged heart, with no sky, no trees, no river and no fields for his eyes to rest on, JJ lost all sense for direction. There was no up nor down, just him wrapped tightly in a suffocatingly sheltered evacuated space he had build himself over the last few weeks.  
Now it was here to take him away.  
To give his heart a home in a world with no horizon, here to end his pathethic small life, here to feast upon his cries and pleads for release.  
Finally, everything came to an end.

And as the fog closed in on him and wrapped itself around his ankles, JJ ceased to exist.  
In between all those memories, surrounded by the now invisible but still present words and pictures from this life that didn't felt like it had even been his, cornered by reality and his own overachieving self, right there with one last sigh JJ ceased to exist.

_Instead of being young and burning up a bible_  
_Feeling super, super, super suicidal_


	2. Fragments of a broken man

When JJ woke up the next morning, he felt as if he had been hit by a truck. A blunt, throbbing pain stretched from his fingertips to his shoulders, through his chest and abdominal muscles down to his calves.  
He tried to sit up and groaned quietly as a stabbing pain went through his head.  
He had no idea what time it was, and out of Habit he was fumbling for his cell phone on the dark, heavy wooden nightstand next to his bed. It took a few seconds for him to realize that it wasn't in its usual spot, and another few seconds passed before he remembered why.  
Since this heaviness had taken possession of him, since the move and since he no longer regularly contacted his friends and family, they had started bombarding him with messages and phone calls, with lots of questions about how he was doing in the new apartment, when he was going to meet up with them, when he could be found on the ice rink again, when the inauguration party would start and when they could come by.  
A few, including Isabella, occasionally let it show through that they were a little confused and also a bit worried about his atypical behavior.  
JJ could handle these last kind of messages the least.  
It was so extraordinarily difficult to read through all these nicely meant, but anything but helpful, subliminal accusations, because that's exactly how every single one of these messages seemed to him: Like an obvious, great reproach. An accusation because he never showed up, an accusation because he had become this miserable heap of ridicule.  
The thought that these few people who expressed their concern may had looked through his mask and had seen his true, pathetic self made him terribly axious. He had made such an incredible effort to present his self-confident, over-excited self to the outside world, he had made such an effort to maintain the status quo, how could it be that despite everything there were a few people who did not buy it anymore?  
And it was exactly those same messages with those same worries that finally led to   
JJ's cell phone lying somewhere in the apartment, turned off and carefully ignored.  
His mother had insisted that he'd get a landline when he moved, on the grounds that it could always be that his mobile phone was broken or had no battery and she couldn't reach him.  
As if she had guessed that her son would soon turn away from that little god-forsaken communication tool.

For a long time JJ sat on the edge of the bed and stared into empty space, his thoughts circling around the question of what he should do with himself and his time today. Of course there were various possibilities, various things he could do, had to finally do, but his tired mind couldn't even make the decision to finally get up and go to the bathroom.  
It was as if ropes held him in place, ropes that didn't allow him to move an inch.  
With a suppressed sigh, JJ turned his head to the small window that had been attached to the east side of his bedroom and looked at the small backyard that extended behind it.

His new apartment was located in a incredibly ordinary block of flats, not exactly a luxury neighborhood, but equipped with pretty apartment buildings and some smaller log houses, painted in soft pastel colors with lots of green all around.  
The building complex in which JJ was located was a kind of cube, with a square hole in the middle, in which there was a small courtyard, where the residents could hang their laundry in the warmer seasons and the children could romp about without their parents having to fear that their offspring would end up on the street.  
There were 13 apartments arranged around the inner courtyard, six downstairs and five on the floor above, each with at least one window out onto the courtyard.  
JJ's father had discovered the ad in the newspaper and JJ had immediately fallen in love with the quieter part of the town and the small but brightly painted apartment.  
His neighbors, as far as he knew them, were very nice and uncomplicated people, an older couple who often got visits from their two grandchildren, a single man in his mid-forties who loved his greyhound more than himself, a gay couple who was always out late into the night and finally a family with twin girls who had recently started school. The rest of the flats were empty or inhabited by people who either never showed up or were never at home.

When he looked at the apartment, JJ had been very enthusiastic about the people who were there and had introduced himself as a soon-to-be new neighbor  
Some of them, including the homosexual couple and the twins' mother, had recognized him as the figure skater on TV, and when the mother admitted that he was much nicer and more down-to-earth in real life than in the media, JJ had just laughed.

When he thought about it now, he also felt like laughing, albeit for different reasons. For completely different reasons. More down-to-earth. Nice. The only down-to-earth thing about him at the time was the fact that he squatted or crouched somewhere on the floor more and more often, his head on his knees in the hope that this dull feeling of emptiness would disappear if he ignored it long enough.  
It had been almost two hours since JJ finally got up from bed and dragged himself into the bathroom, deliberately avoiding looking in the mirror and only doing the bare essentials quickly, driving his washcloth through his face and hairbrush through his hair, and exchanging his sleeping clothes for a red-black tracksuit.  
He lacked the energy to shower or brush his teeth.  
It wasn't as if it had taken a lot of effort to do so, it was simply that JJ wasn't able to take a single step towards the shower, let alone turn on the water, take his clothes off and wash properly. It was once more this black, omnipresent fog that stuck his feet to the floor and made every step infinitely tedious. This merciless fog which had hooked itself to his whole body and pulled him down piece by piece, as if he was carrying several hundred weights around with him.

The sun wandered across the sky in the usual manner, and JJ did little more all day than sit on the carelessly cornered sofa in his empty living room staring at the white walls. Shortly after two o'clock he had actually managed to open one of the boxes at his feet and begin to set up some of the things that were inside. The large floor lamp in a simple, elegant design now stood next to the sofa, a low table with an oval glass top with a few magazines and a framed picture of Isabella on top of it.  
But when JJ took the picture frame out of the box, he discovered his cell phone right underneath, and when he turned it on and saw that he had over 10 messages and four missed calls from his fiancée, a wave of huge guilt had grabbed him and he hadn't touched the rest of the box.

Instead, he was sitting on the sofa again, turning the phone in his hands and struggling with himself whether to call back or not. It had been a good two days since they had last talked and much longer since he had last met her.  
As an excuse, he also used the new apartment and the familiarization, as she knew that JJ was actually a friend of well-known traditions and rituals.  
At her offer to help him set up and change, he had thankfully refused, saying that she had enough to do with her studies and that he was not 12 anymore and would be able to do it himself.

With a look at her photo, he grabbed a heart and dialed the old familiar number.

Isabella took the call after the fourth ring, and since she was just answering with " Yang", JJ assumed that she hadn't paid attention to his number.  
"Hy Babe," JJ said, unsure if he could rely on his voice, after all, it had been some time since he had last used it. When he was sure that she wouldn't hang up immediately when he spoke, he cleared his throat and added "Everything all right? "JJ!" JJ thought to hear a mixture of relief and anger out of her greeting and tried to mentally prepare for what would surely follow. "Where have you been?! I tried to reach you uncountable times but you just didn't answer. You didn't answer my messages either!" JJ bit his lip and tried to ignore the new wave of bad conscience. "I'm sorry, babe, I was out all day getting little things for the apartment. After, I helped Mrs. Anuun to install her new TV and you know how old people are, she invited me directly to cake and tea and told me about her grandchildren. I couldn't get myself out of it! I really didn't think it would be that late. Will you forgive me?"  
JJ tried to put as much casualness into his lie as possible, hoping Isabella would swallow his story. And she did: "Sweetheart, you're just too nice! If the press knew that, they'd see you differently," she laughed. "God beware," JJ tried a grin, "then they'd hear about my charity missions, too, and my image as a big, obnoxious king of the ice would be fucked." Isabella laughed again: "You are always so modest, giving all donations anonymously. But it's something beautiful what you're doing! Anyway, darling. I'm just on my way home; should I stop by yours quickly? I miss you so much!"  
JJ's throat tightened at the words and he had to empty swallow a few times before he could answer: "Sorry sweetie, but I'm really near-death from the busy day, I guess I'll take a shower and then go straight to bed. Tomorrow's a lot to do! In a week I'll start training again, from then on we'll see each other again daily!" When his fiancée answered, the disappointment was clearly audible: "Alright, okay. But promise me that we'll do something together on the weekend. It's still two months until my exams and I have nothing to do on Saturday. I really want to see you again, my Love". JJ's heart became heavy. "Okay, yeah... look, I can't promise you anything because I don't know if I have anything planned for Saturday yet, my planner is buried somewhere in this cardboard chaos. But I will definitely get back to you!" As soon as he had spoken these words, he made the firm intention to really get in touch with her, and not to let her wait so long again. That couldn't be so difficult, damn it!  
"Meeh..." Isabella sounded glum, but immediately added, "okay okay, I can understand that you are very busy right now. But I would be really happy to soon be able to hold my busy boyfriend in my arms again." JJ tried to answer in mock-offence: "Pha, I'll give that busy back to you. Which one of us spends at least three out of seven evenings with some of their fellow students in the bars, huh?" They both laughed.  
After a while of silence, Isabella suddenly asked: "Darling, are you okay?   
JJ thought for a moment, and then answered: "Of course, babe, you know I'm always great. How could it be any different with my great life and this great woman at my side?" He prayed that she would believe him. He couldn't let her down any more than he already did and make her worry over his worthless ass. His fiancée at the other end of the line just laughed, not completely convinced by his great words. "I love you, JJ," she breathed into her cell phone. "I love you too. You're wonderful," JJ replied, trying to put as much honesty and passion into those words as possible. Then she hung up.

JJ sat on the light blue plush sofa amidst the boxes and halfway put away belongings and pressed his cell phone to his chest, his eyes closed.  
He tried to keep this warm feeling that this brief phone call with the person he loved the most had made in him as long as possible. He loved her. He loved her so much that he could hardly stand it. Isabella was the most wonderful person on earth, she was funny, honest, open and loyal, she was neither after JJ's fame nor after his money, she had consciously chosen him as a person. Something that JJ had so far simply accepted, something he had never really thought about. But now, at that moment when he desperately tried not to lose that brief moment of bliss to the black hole of nothing, he realized how unbelievably great this gift was that this woman was giving him day after day. She loved him for exactly what he was.

But what was he?   
Who was he?

_A little loss of innocence_

Hadn't she fallen in love with the funny, somewhat arrogant figure skater, who had a some cheesy words and a solution ready at any time of the day or night? Had she not fallen for that self-confident young king?   
Wasn't that exactly what it was?  
And now he sat there, so infinitely far away from the man he was surely in her thoughts. Here he sat, Jean-Jaques, soiled with that black nothing that dripped out of all pores and tried to plug the holes that opened up in him.  
Lost in a cold sea of eternal damnation, so far away from the pure, innocent JJ, pure in spirit and innocent in heart, pure and strong.  
He was a nobody.  
He was nothing.  
And as the sky put on a dark dress and the sun slowly settled to rest, this broken, devastated JJ swore to never Show his true face to his beloved girlfriend. To never let her know that the Person she had fallen in love with no longer existed.  
Never.


	3. Undeniable darkness

The good feeling JJ had gotten from the phone call with Isabella lasted exactly until he fell asleep. When he woke up at half past three in the morning, it was already there again, that indescribable black feeling, that nothingness sticking to his hands and feet, sitting on his chest like the weight of death itself. Raising an arm to rub his eyes seemed to demand a strenght JJ almost couldn't muster.  
Slowly he sat up in bed and stared out of the window for a while, where in the darkness of the night he could vaguely see the silhouettes of the slide and the sandbox in the courtyard. Eventually he rose from the bed, with all available willpower ignoring the leaden heaviness in his limbs, and almost fell down again if he hadn't been able to grab the bedside table next to him at the last moment. A short, violent pain struck his wrist as he leaned on the cupboard, and he cursed quietly as he tried to get back on his feet. He was terribly dizzy and black dots danced before his eyes. He closed them for a moment and took a few deep breaths before getting up again and trying to get to the bathroom.  
It worked better this time, but the dizziness stayed and he had to guide himself along the wall to the bathroom door so as not to risking to fall again.

He randomly grabbed some towel from the towel rail and held it under the tap. He drove the wet cloth over his face and pressed it into his neck, the cold water awakened his spirits a little and he could now see more clearly. From the mirror a pale, almost ghostly white face stared back at him, the black hair a clear contrast against the paleness. JJ saw deep black circles underneath his eyes, and above them something that might have been shiny, glowing eyes an eternity ago. But now they were dull and sunken in.   
He raised a hand to his forehead to check if he had a fever, hoping to find an explanation for his sudden vertigo. But everything felt normal.   
With a sigh he turned away from the mirror and went back to the open bedroom door. Probably he had just got up too quickly or had low blood sugar. That happened to him from time to time, ever since he was little. Normally that wasn't a problem as long as he ate properly and didn't experiment with his nutritional values.  
All of a sudden JJ stopped.  
Slowly, very slowly it dawned on him what the reason for this sudden weakness could be. He had completely and absolutely missed eating the last two days.  
Not that he deliberately left it out, he had simply forgotten.  
He laughed briefly and humorlessly, in the middle of the dark hallway at almost four in the morning. He had actually managed to forget something as essential as eating.  
Apparently his hunger had completely left or he had simply not noticed what his body was trying to signal in the dark vortex of the past few days. With one hand he rubbed his forehead and went to the kitchen door across the hall.  
The kitchen was small but had everything one needed to live. A stove with two hotplates, three small kitchen cupboards and a refrigerator were mounted on the right wall, the walnut table to the left of it was littered with three cardboard boxes, patiently waiting to be rid of their plates, cutlery and all the other kitchen furnishings.  
Right next to the stove was a small sideboard with a microwave and a smoothie maker. The smoothie maker was JJ's big treasure, because he normally never went to bed without his fruit smoothie. But "Normally" seemed so unbelievably long ago that he had little more than a tired look for the red-silver plastic device.   
JJ opened the fridge in the corner and looked at the poor yield, consisting of two packs of orange juice, a few protein bars and a small plastic bowl filled with noodles and tomato sauce that his mother had brought over a few days ago. Somewhere in the back of his mind, JJ briefly stumbled upon the question of why the hell the protein bars were in the fridge, but he was neither awake enough nor really interested in the answer, so he dropped the thought again. Probably he had just threw everything in the fridge no matter what it was.

_Nothing ever did make sense_

JJ suppressed a yawn and grabbed the plastic bowl, rummaged around in one of the boxes on the table until he could grab a fork and elbowed his way to one corner of the table, sat down and began to sloppily untwist the cold noodles with the fork.  
It tasted terrible. JJ wasn't a fan of cold noodles and the sauce was watery and tasted like nothing. But it didn't matter, after all he didn't really eat for pleasure, but simply because he had to. He was barely halfway through his meal when he was overcome with the sudden desire to hide in a corner and cry, it was so strong and so surprising that JJ could barely fight it for a Minute before he dropped the fork into the bowl, pushed it aside and put his arms on the table, his head buried in it. Hardly a few moments later, tears ran down his cheeks and he pressed his head even harder into his arms, he trembled and he shook all over.   
Pathetic.  
Pathetic.  
Weak.  
Useless.  
Everything was just a fucking joke, HE was just a joke, a terribly bad one.  
His life suddenly seemed so incredibly useless and empty, there was nothing, nothing nothing nothing that this black blanket that had wrapped itself around him and threatened to suffocate him could make it detach. There was nothing and nobody who could help him now.  
It was all so empty. So empty. Empty.  
Here he sat, in the semi-dark kitchen somewhere in Canada that lay somewhere on this unfortunate world that flew somewhere in this wide, miserable universe.  
Here he sat in front of half-eaten cold noodles, a packed kitchen table and an empty fridge.  
Here he sat, a sorry heap of a human, a howling miserable sorry heap.  
He was absolutely sure: God had forsaken him.

The dull morning sun was already showing its first rays through the small window next to the refrigerator when JJ's tears finally stopped, and he remained sitting at the table exhausted from crying and the sleepless night, with a growling stomach and biting headache.  
Waves of shame rolled over him as he slowly realized that he, of all people, the great king on the ice, had suffered a total break-down here at his kitchen table.  
He was ashamed that he had cried, he was ashamed that he had shown so much weakness, he was ashamed that he had not been able to enjoy his long-awaited apartment, to furnish it, to go shopping, to maintain contacts.  
He was absolutely ashamed of the heap of misery he was.  
In his tired brain he searched for reasons that could rationally explain to him how the whole mess had happened. He needed explanations, he wanted to understand. He desperately needed a good reason to use as an excuse, to blame everything on, not to have to admit that he despised himself abysmally for it.  
It drove him mad not to know what was going on with him, he felt so irretrievably at the mercy of this world and this new black thought, and that scared the hell out of him.  
Emptiness, despair, mental exhaustion were not feelings and states a JJ knew. He had the claim on himself to find a way out of every situation and to oppose every negative feeling with a double dose of optimism.  
It was one of his iron principles to never give up or indulge in self-pity.  
And yet here he sat and did exactly that, instead of kicking his own ass and telling himself that he could do anything.  
"And where", a very quiet, very soft voice came up somewhere at the back of his head, "where is the point in continuing at all? Isn't it kinda.. already over?"

_Feeling super, super, super suicidal_

It took a few seconds for JJ to become fully aware of these words, and he was deeply shocked.  
Had he really reached that point now? He refused to accept this.  
More energetically than he had expected of himself he stood up from the table and grabbed the remaining noodles and threw them - bowl and fork included - in the trash. A strange kind of rage was boiling up in him, none that made him throw objects or yell at people, none he knew from lost competitions or difficult figure skating routines. It was the kind of rage that grew out of abysmal fear, a protective mechanism the brain had come up with. JJ wasn't aware of this at the time, but the fact that a little voice in the back of his head had come up telling him that his life no longer had any meaning shocked him completely. He was afraid of himself.  
This other kind of rage didn't last long, JJ restlessly stood in the kitchen for a moment and his gaze wandered from the sideboard to the kitchen cupboards until he got stuck at the fridge. Then that unknown feeling fell away from him as quickly as it had come, leaving him with a blunt gaze and lead-heavy limbs. He sighed deeply and decided to go shopping today, right after lying down and catching up on a few hours of sleep.

It remained a good intent.  
When JJ awoke around half past noon, the fear and the resulting anger and the voice in his head had disappeared, but there was that old familiar fog again, as usual it stuck all over the ceiling, the walls, the bed and JJ himself. As usual it took all his energy to make something out of him and the day.  
He actually made it to the bathroom before one o'clock, where he washed briefly and took a shamefaced look at the shower, but then trotted into the living room empty-handed.  
A dull feeling in his stomach brought back the memory of last night, and it seemed somehow unreal to JJ, like a bad dream. He remembered it only fragmentarily, and now that his head was a little clearer again, it seemed to him as if he had acted like a madman.  
He shook his head and booked it as nightly madness. At night one was often much more receptive to negative thoughts and actions, so it had already happened to him that in a sleepless night before a competition he had gone through his complete program again for hours, out of the inexplicable fear of no longer knowing the order on the ice.  
He had barely sat down on the sofa in the light-flooded living room when a wave of nausea struck him, forcing him to go back to the kitchen and fridge. He grabbed one of the orange juice boxes and a protein bar, and when he turned back to the living room, he saw the open garbage bag leaning against the stove as he walked past. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the plastic bowl he had thrown away last night. Without further ado JJ knotted the garbage bag and placed it next to the apartment door, he would take it downstairs afterwards and to the garbage collection point. He really had to go shopping!   
He would just check the missed messages on his cell phone, jump in the shower and go.

_The wasted time,_   
_the wasted youth_

He made it to the cell phone on the sofa.  
He really looked through the missed sms and even responded to some of them, but somehow a strange force seemed to pull him further and further into the sofa, so that it was impossible for him to get up again after a short time. He spent the rest of the day writing with some friends and telling them excitedly about his alleged experiences in the DIY store yesterday, and trying out some apps that were just suggested to him in the playstore.  
Only just after 6 p.m. did the sound of the landline phone rip him out of his sluggishness. JJ let it ring for a full minute, until he could finally get up to leave the sofa and thus a place from the terrible reality and obligations. As expected, it was his mother who called - nobody but her had this number.  
They exchanged greetings and told each other what the last days had been like, JJ told the story with his neighbor and about the visit to the hardware store - he noticed how fluently such lies were now on his lips.  
His mother told him how they all missed him terribly at home, and how his brothers and sisters even got into a fight because everyone wanted to be the first to see the big brother's apartment. When JJ heard this his heart became heavy. He had completely forgotten that he had promised his family that they would be allowed to visit him soon, at the latest when he resumed his training. And that happened to be in four days. Suddenly he felt sick and this time not because he had hardly eaten anything yet. Visit, training. Ice skating, training, getting visitors, leaving the apartment, letting other people into the apartment, back on the ice, visitors. The words whirled in his head and a slight panic crept up his throat. Under no circumstances could he let anyone know what his apartment really looked like, let alone his family. But he couldn't just skip training any longer, he had to pull himself together and resume his daily routine.   
"Jean-Jaques, darling?" his mother sounded a little worried, and tore JJ out of his thoughts. "Yes, sorry, I was just looking forward to finally seeing the ice again," he lied quickly and tried to strike a cheerful note. His mother laughed and said that she had been surprised anyway that he hadn't shown up at the ice rink in between and had done a few laps. "Normally you can't get off the ice." JJ tried to laugh at what he failed terribly, a knot had formed in his stomach and his chest felt tight. "Yes, I'm really looking forward to Monday." "Are you eating properly too, my boy? I know how scattered you are sometimes! Shall I bring you something?" Considering his empty fridge and the fact that he certainly couldn't make it out of the apartment today, JJ briefly considered accepting the offer, but he couldn't think of any reasonable reason to send his mother away right at the door, so he finally replied, "No, it's all right, Mum, don't worry. I have the Saveways around the corner, it's open until eleven in the evening. And otherwise I just invite myself to dinner at Mrs. Anuun's, she's got something for me." They talked for a little while before JJ hung up on the pretext of wanting to talk to Isabella on the phone. He thought for a moment about actually calling his fiancée, but then decided to address a much more pressing problem first: his fridge was still just as empty as the night before. In fact, it was actually even emptier. However, he felt absolutely unable to leave the house, let alone communicate with passers-by and cashiers. It was so incredibly tiring.  
JJ stood in the hallway, his back leaning against his apartment door, when suddenly an enlightenment in the form of his mobile phone came to him, which was still lying on the plush sofa, clearly visible through the open living room door. He could simply order something! And he didn't have to let a courier service into his apartment either, and he didn't have to give them a credible excuse to explain his looks.   
JJ grabbed the cell phone and briefly browsed various delivery service pages until a small but reliable looking take-away came up. Thereviews were good and many of the customers wrote that the couriers were discreet and uncomplicated. That's exactly what JJ had been looking for. He took a quick look at the food list and then indiscriminately chose the best that wasn't too expensive. He still felt really hungry, but he had absolutely no desire to have another breakdown like last night, which he meanwhile blamed on the lack of food, and the slight but permanent pain in the stomach area was really nerve-wracking.  
He called the delivery service and placed his order, the man at the other end promised to be with him within the next three quarters of an hour.

Now he had about 45 minutes which he had to get around somehow.  
But before he could even think about what he could spend this time with, the ringing of his cell phone took the decision away from him. The display showed Isabella's name, along with the picture of her and JJ they shot in China two years ago. JJ had had a competition there.  
JJ closed his eyes briefly and stroked his forehead with his flat hand, then wiped his finger across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read my lines.  
> Thank you!!


End file.
